Friday, June 17, 2011

Guest Blogging

I wrote a guest post about Charlotte Perkins Gilman's book Herland for Her Circle Ezine, a website about women, writing and art.The post is an expansion on one paragraph in this old post I wrote juxtaposing Herland with Marilyn French's book The Women's Room*.I expanded this paragraph into a longer essay on how masculinity and femininity are portayed in Herland, which is as complementary performances that distort human nature and interactions between the sexes, and which each depend on the other to work. (Particularly, I look at the character of Terry, and how his brand of brash, overbearing hypermasculinity works against him in the all-woman, but not particularly "feminine," society of Herland.)

@Nancy - yes, that's probably it. We do see indications throughout the book that it's the older women who are most objectionable to the male explorers ... and the language they use to make fun of them also makes it sound like they're mischievous boys rebelling against a bunch of stuffy old schoolmarms. So the older women, at least, remind them of a familiar female archetype --- it's just not one they find particularly desirable!

Because the older women are no longer pretty or sexy or quiet. Lindsay, you did a great job on that post at Her Circle! Shana and I both want to know if you want to do it again. You can consider yourself a "sure thing," and send me articles whenever you choose.Let me know what you think?

Yes, I'd be happy to submit other articles to Her Circle ... I don't have anything in mind right now, but if I come up with anything new, or think an old post can be reworked, I will definitely email you about it.

A Portrait of the Autist

I'm a recent KU graduate with degrees in biochemistry and English lit. I'm also on the autism spectrum, having been diagnosed with PDD-NOS at age 5. It's quite likely that, were I to be seen now, I'd be diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.
I write about a lot of things, which include but are not limited to: autism research, psychology, neuroscience, feminism, autism advocacy/neurodiversity, autism in literature, and broad, sweeping cultural critique. I also draw, paint and take the occasional random picture.
Spam and abusive comments meet the icy-cold fury of my deleting finger.

Recommended Reading

These are books I've read that I thought worthy of recommendation; it's not meant to be an exhaustive reading list in any topic. I will add to it as I discover more books I think people need to read.

Because I believe that true freedom of thought is incompatible with a world where all our books, opinions, news and entertainment comes from the same handful of corporations, I have linked to independent bookstores whenever I could.